Category: Readings

In the time since Billions finished filming and we know Damian has been on break, it’s been interesting following the various projects he’s tackling back home across the pond. You hear of actors spending their series hiatuses well out of the public eye, on a beach somewhere, lounging away the days until filming starts again. Not Damian Lewis. The break from NYC and from Bobby Axelrod saw a Londoner doing London things, loving on his home town. Seems the only person to get the time off was Damian’s barber!

The holiday season seems a great time to watch new films and catch up with the waiting list. One film long on my list has been Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. I knew enough about the film and had seen enough clips to know it would not be the typical feel-good holiday watching. But I also knew enough about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s history together that any film starring the two of them would be a scalding glimpse into their mad love story.

What does all this have to do with Damian Lewis, you wonder? Well, one of the Top Moments in 2015 for Damian Lewis was his reading the role of Richard Burton in Lawrence Wright’s Cleo at the New Yorker Film Festival in October. And because Damianista and I were there, front row center, it’s a TOP moment for us too! There we were rapt in attention as Damian belched his way into the script and, despite the fact that the show was simply a table reading, proceeded to channel the rude, sexy, and perpetually drunk Welshman to a tee.

After the interview with Lauren Collins on Saturday, the second event for Damian Lewis at this weekend’s New Yorker Festival was a play reading of Lawrence Wright’s Cleo, with Damian Lewis playing the part of Richard Burton to Lily Rabe’s Elizabeth Taylor.

We’re all pretty familiar with “le scandale” that brewed behind the set of the filming of the most expensive production of its time, right? Lawrence Wright’s script gives us a story built around the events of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s combustible love affair during the filming of Hollywood blockbuster Cleopatra.